


Inglorious

by tintern_abbey (lyricalballads)



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Angst, F/M, One-Sided Attraction, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27255007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricalballads/pseuds/tintern_abbey
Summary: Obsession is the elixir that poured life through these sorry veins, but obsession is only obsession.Obsession is not love.
Relationships: Christine Daaé & Erik | Phantom of the Opera
Kudos: 4





	Inglorious

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted in 2012 (then reposted in 2014) on fanfiction.net.

It won't be long now. These tired lungs cannot draw breath another day, nor can this weary heart continue to beat through another sunrise. This living corpse body, this wretched body that has imprisoned this monstrous soul, will be a true corpse before the night is through. A true corpse, exactly the way this cold, inhuman body was meant to be.

No, it won't be long now. It won't be long until the fire from these hideous yellow eyes is extinguished forever. Until these cold, clammy hands can play the organ no longer. Until Christine's wicked Angel draws his last breath.

My Christine!

Soon she will visit this dark, lonely cellar one last time to bury me with the ring I gave her, the ring that was meant to be her wedding band. A wedding band for my living wife! Oh, what madness possessed me to kidnap that bright, innocent child and threaten her with such a fate? She would have drowned herself in the lake to escape the horrible trap I had planned! What sane woman wouldn't? Even Christine—my kind, good-hearted Christine who called me "poor Erik" and cried with me—would have drowned herself in that cold, dreadful lake to avoid sharing a life with a monster such as I.

No, Christine, you do not belong to this cellar, shut away from the world and all its sunlight. You do not deserve a monster for a husband, even if you found the strength in your poor little heart to love him!

But what is love?

No one has ever loved this living corpse with the hideous face. No one has ever let words of endearment fall upon these miserable ears. Erik has never known love, so how can Erik be certain that he loves Christine?

Is obsession love? No, obsession is not love, nor is idolatry, or worship, or the strongest adoration. This pitiful black heart only _thinks_ it loves that golden-haired child, that angel of the stage—for Christine is truly the Angel of Music, not I. Christine is an angel worshipped by a devil, and that devil had the audacity to think that he _loved_!

What lies and illusions. What cruel tricks! For in order to love, one must be loved first. Obsession is the elixir that poured life through these sorry veins, but obsession is only obsession.

Obsession is not love.

And now I wait in this coffin bed, for I am truly alone in this world. Who will mourn Erik when he draws his last breath? Who will give the requiem mass? "Poor, unhappy Erik" my angel called me, and poor, unhappy Erik I shall remain until the last!

It won't be long now. It won't be long until this inglorious life comes to its inevitable close, until this demon's face is hidden from the world where no one will ever find it. Until these bones crumble and this flesh rots away, leaving nothing behind but a dead memory, for the world will neither mourn nor remember a man like Erik.

Oh no, it won't be long now, and I am ready for the long, quiet sleep that awaits me. I have _always_ been ready.


End file.
